Can a newly single A-Rod smack more doubles and triples?

The Yankees slugging third baseman is due back in the lineup Friday night against Toronto for the first time since his split with Cameron Diaz – and fans hope the heartbreak means home runs….

Rodriguez, who was also linked with Madonna after his divorce, memorably dated “Almost Famous” actress Kate Hudson during the Yankees’ 2009 championship run.

The blond Hollywood honey received much of the credit when A-Rod reversed a disastrous post-season slump as the Yankees won the World Series.

– Larry McShane, N.Y. Daily News.

A-Rod’s hitting line, by celebrity girlfriend:

Madonna (August 2008 – end 2008): .258/.366/.511 in 50 games.

Kate Hudson (Late May 2009 – end 2009): .302/.419/.560 in 129 games, including postseason.

Cameron Diaz (July 2010 – Sept. 15, 2011): .274/.349/.498 in 156 games.

By my best estimates of when he started dating each based on the maximum number of celebrity-gossip articles I could stomach.

It’s worth noting that while dating Hudson, A-Rod enjoyed his best batting average with balls in play.

Oh, indeed.

Presumably you’ve heard that Mariano Rivera saved his 600th game last night. Sometime this week he’ll save his 601st game, and before the season is done he’ll save his 602nd game and break the all-time saves record, just in case anyone is silly enough to need that figure for evidence that Rivera is the greatest closer of all-time.

By allowing a single hit last night, Rivera maintained his career 1.000 WHIP. To date he has thrown 1206 innings, yielded 932 hits and walked 274 batters. That is, if you’re scoring at home, awesome.

Adjusted ERA+ factors park- and league-effects into earned-run average and scales it so that 100 is average — sort of like IQ tests and the old SATs. Among pitchers with over 1000 innings pitched, Pedro Martinez has the second best ERA+ of all time with 154. Third is someone named Jim Devlin, who dominated hitters for three seasons in the 1870s and managed a career 151 mark. Fourth and fifth are Hall of Famers Lefty Grove and Walter Johnson, with 148 and 147, respectively. Those men were pitching geniuses.

Rivera’s career adjusted ERA+ is 205, more than 50 points higher than the next best ever. Isaac Newton stuff, in this imperfect metaphor.

Of course, any discussion placing Rivera among the best pitchers ever must be qualified with the fact that his dominance almost always came in one-inning stints. Who knows what Johnson or Grove or Pedro would have done if afforded that luxury? Who knows if Rivera would have been anywhere near as effective if asked to throw 120 relief innings every year the way Rollie Fingers once did, or — heaven forbid — to start games.

It never happened, so it doesn’t matter much now. Rivera happened to emerge and succeed in the era of the one-inning closer, a role he has come to define better than Tony La Russa ever could.

And though there’s evidence to show that teams leading after the 8th inning have won the same rate of games since the dawn of the closer as they did in all the years before that, perhaps increased specialization in bullpens was an adjustment necessary to maintain that percentage in the contemporary game rather than a needless rejiggering of an already effective system.

Either way, Rivera is awesome. That’s the main thing.

The lineup is in, and it’s Jeter, Jeter and more Jeter.

The Algonquin Seaport Theater, which is planning a Derek Jeter-themed one-act festival next month, revealed on Wednesday the plays that made the cut from the call for the competition last month, made shortly after Jeter reached his much-heralded 3,000th hit.

– Julie Shapiro, DNAInfo.com.

Dammit, how is it possible I’m only hearing about this now that the plays have been selected? This could have been my big break, Internet, and you failed to notify me in a timely fashion! I’m very disappointed.

I should probably check this out, though. And maybe get working now on my Mark Sanchez one-act for whenever that opportunity arises.

Via Bronx Banter.

“For him to go through what he’s gone through the last two outings, this guy’s human,” Hunter said. “He’s going to get older, and it’s going to slow down for him, but I still don’t want to face him.”

Hunter continued: “Hitters still fear him. Mariano’s name carries weight, and I’m not even going off his name, I’m going off what he still has. His cutter is unbelievable. Still, to this day. He doesn’t throw as hard — 91, 92 — but the cutter still cuts the same.”

Against Abreu on Tuesday, it did not, and Scutaro also handled the pitch. Rivera is signed through next season, and he reacted calmly to the defeats, as always. But such moments remind us of the uncomfortable reality that Rivera, the Yankees’ indispensable closer, is reaching an expiration date, as all players do.

– Tyler Kepner, N.Y. Times.

Speculation about the inevitable end of the Mariano Rivera era in the Bronx is now about as predictable as Mariano Rivera. Every time a couple of his rare blown saves happen to come back-to-back, Yankee fans freak out and baseball columnists start penning eulogies for his ridiculously awesome career.

Here’s the thing, though: Rivera is still great. His ERA in 2011 is exactly at his career mark, and his WHIP and K:BB are better than his established (and awesome) rates. To his credit, Kepner notes a lot of that in his column.

Watch: Rivera’s going to lock down his next 15 chances, and everyone will clam up about his age. Same thing’ll happen next year.

Crazytime. The White Sox don’t walk much, but still.